Ever wondered why we caught up in certain situation or surrounded by certain people? What does it try to tell us?
Still related with the NLP/Neuro-Linguistic Programming workshop that I did few weeks a go, one of the task was describing about the flower that I chose from a selection of many different type of flowers.
I chose a local Jasmine flower. I don't remember if I took a photo of the flower, but this flower resemble how it looked like (photo taken in Germany - 2010).
The flower that I chose also has 2 branches, where one brach full of bloomed flower, while the other branch doesn't have a bloomed flower.
I was presenting the flower that I chose in front of other participants (without knowing what was the purpose of this exercise), and here’s what I came up:
- Even though there are many beautiful flower in the selection, I chose jasmine because it reminded me of the country where I come from, Indonesia, as Jasmine is the national flower of Indonesia. In the past, I was always wondering why did I born as Indonesian.
- The color of Jasmine, white, reminds me of purity and innocence.
- Even though the life expectancy of a Jasmine is short (if you pick the flower it wouldn’t last long), this flower can give happiness to other being who see/smell it. A representative of life itself where we can still give benefit/happiness to someone else’s life no matter how short our time is.
- Talking about life expectancy, as you see there’s a flower that is already bloomed, but there are also some that is on its way to bloom. And just like life, it’s a constant cycle, every ending is a new beginning. Once the first batch of bloomed flower dies, the next flowers will bloom at their own time. A lesson for me, no need to rush to be someone that I want to be. The time will come only when I’m ready :)
- At the beginning I was thinking maybe it would be better if I plucked the other branch that doesn’t have the flower, so there’s only the left part that is full with beauty. This again reminded me of life itself, that we often think one is better than the other just because it has the things that we perceive as 'beautiful'. While in fact, nothing is more beautiful or less than the others.
- Still about the 2 branches that comes out from the one branch, it reminded me that I often think that there’s separation or individuality while it’s actually comes from the same source. Like this 2 branches that comes from one branch which then split. Everything comes from the same source, oneness.
- When I see the leaves, there were several leaves that has a hole in it or even torn apart. Again, it reminded me that life can give us challenges that might give ‘scar’ to our physical or non-physical being. Yet it doesn’t mean that those ‘scars’ make us worth less. It’s actually a mark that we've been through a great journey in life with its ups and downs.
Can you guess what’s this exercise is about?
Dr. Glynn, the workshop facilitator said that this exercise is a good meditative exercise, an opportunity to reflect our life through another creation.
The way our brain works is that it has filtration towards how do we want to see life. This filtration often make us don’t see things as it is. We put judgement or opinion based on our own perspective and experience, which makes us become subjective. In this case, I bet if there are more people who describe the same flower (without knowing the goal of this exercise), I believe everyone will give different opinion that is suit their own life & personality.
Let’s look at from different perspective. Do you often feel why you can be surrounded by the similar type of person? Of course it can change depending on the circumstances, as sometimes the people or situation around us can be very stressful, yet another time everything can be just wonderful.
In brief, whatever we are experiencing on the outside, is something that is actually reflected from our inner world. You find people very helpful and nice to you, well I guess you must be a lovely person too :)
Although, if someone being mean to you, that doesn’t always mean that you are that negative too. It’s someway a reflection of ourselves to acknowledge that yes, that little evil side is inside me too, but I have a choice to feed it or not. Dalai Lama for example, one of the most peaceful person in this world that facing a country who killed his own people. As a leader, he has a choice whether he want to do the same thing again, but instead he chose forgiveness and compassion.
Another thing is also that many times we don’t see things as it is. The moral story from this exercise and the whole post is that often we blame the externals when we caught up in a situation when life isn’t going as we wanted. Unfortunately often it’s not our natural mechanism to ask to ourselves “Is there anything that I should improve and correct about myself toward this situation? What did I do that make me experience this?”.
Your turns now! Get a flower, any flower and doesn’t need to be a pretty one (you can always find goodness in all situation :) ), and describe what do you think of that flower? Listen to your own voice on how you reflect yourself through a flower.
It's okay if you couldn't find many pretty things to say about the flower. If I didn't know the goal for this, I don't think I will say 'pure' and 'innocent' about my chosen flower. I'm not perfect and made mistakes too. Remember, nothing is worth less or more than the others :)
Curious who is Dr. Glynn and what NLP really is? This link will take you to the answers.
Love,
Zia
